


CQD

by Glory1863



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Drown Malcolm Month, Episode: s02e03 Minefield, Friendship, Gen, RMS Titanic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 05:10:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glory1863/pseuds/Glory1863
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Come quick, disaster! A shuttlepod piloted by Malcolm Reed crash lands on a watery planet where he is forced to live his worst nightmare - twice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	CQD

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics quoted are from the hymm _Nearer, My God, To Thee_ , words by Sarah F. Adams.

“Bloody hell!” Lieutenant Malcolm Reed exclaimed as the shuttlepod’s engine sputtered once and then cut out for good.  He had been surveying MGY1912, a planet the crew of his ship, the _Enterprise_ _,_ had facetiously dubbed “Waterworld.”  To Reed, there was nothing funny about it.  According to the Vulcan database, the planet was about 80% water, not so much more than Earth, but from his current vantage point it was **all** water with not even a speck of dry land to be seen anywhere.  This simply wasn’t an acceptable situation.  Reed didn’t much fancy water in quantity.  More accurately, his one great weakness was that he was terrified of drowning.

He struggled with the controls in hopes of effecting a soft landing.  The shuttlepod was constructed of strong yet light-weight materials.  Depending upon the water’s salinity, he might be able to stay afloat long enough for _Enterprise_ to rescue him if he could land without too much damage.  Despite his fear, he almost managed it, too, but at the last minute the pod was struck by a crosswind gust that tipped it to starboard (right).  The nose plowed into the water, and the craft somersaulted three times as it slid across the ocean’s surface before settling heavily in the water.  In the midst of one of the sickening spins, Reed’s head slammed into the control panel.

 ---

“Captain, I’ve lost contact with Shuttlepod One!”  Ensign Hoshi Sato’s voice cut through the normally quiet atmosphere on the bridge of the _Enterprise_.  All eyes turned to her.

“Keep trying to raise him, Hoshi,” Captain Jonathan Archer commanded.  “Do we know his last position?  Did Malcolm report any problems?”

“This was his position an hour ago when he last reported in.”  A representation of the planet with a green grid system superimposed on it came up on the view screen.  A tiny, pulsing, red dot over an expanse of ocean indicated the pod’s location.  “He didn’t mention any problems, sir,”  Sato replied.  Her voice trembled a bit.  She was rather fond of Reed.

“Just keep hailing him, Hoshi.  All bands.  All frequencies.  He may simply be having a problem with the comm unit, but just in case, keep an ear out for the automated emergency beacon.”  Archer tried to keep his voice calm and confident.  After all, that was part of his job as captain.  Behind the mask of command, however, he was feeling anything but.  If Malcolm Reed were still alive and in trouble on “Waterworld”, then he was living his worst nightmare.  To Archer’s knowledge, aside from Reed himself of course, he was the only one aboard who knew about the armory officer’s aquaphobia.

Archer turned his attention to the Engineering station.  “Trip, I know the warp drive is down for routine maintenance, so go see if you can light a fire under the impulse engine, will you?”

“Sure thing, Cap’n.  You give me about 5 minutes to get to Engineering and another 5 to do some tinkering and then you can redline it.”  He was already out of his seat and headed for the turbolift with swift strides.  Before the doors closed, he added, “No pussyfooting around, Travis.  When I give you the green light, floor it!”

 “Aye, sir,” Ensign Travis Mayweather acknowledged the command from the helm.  By rights, the order should have come from Archer, but the captain chose to overlook the breach of protocol.  Commander Charles “Trip” Tucker, III, _Enterprise_ ’s chief engineer, was probably Reed’s closest friend on board.

 “Would it not be logical to have a more accurate location for the shuttlepod before, as Mr. Reed would say, we go ‘haring off'?  With the information available, I estimate a search area of . . .” Subcommander T’Pol, the Vulcan first officer, was sharply interrupted by Ensign Sato.

 “Captain, I’m picking up the emergency beacon.  Just a second and I’ll have the location.”   The small, blinking, red dot jumped on the screen.

 “Nice work, Hoshi!  Send the coordinates to helm.”

 “Aye, sir.”  Hoshi’s fingers flew over her console.

 “Travis, set a course.  I see Mr. Tucker has given you the green light, so I advise you to follow his orders and ‘floor it'.”

 “Coming to course 125.9.  Speed is - I’m putting the pedal to the metal, sir.”  _Enterprise_ bucked once at the sudden call for power and then smoothly accelerated in the direction of MGY1912.  Normally, Mayweather would be grinning from ear to ear during a speed run like this, but not this time.  Reed was a friend of his, too.

 ---

Malcolm Reed leaned back in his chair to stretch for a moment and ease his back.  He then smoothed the smart navy blue uniform he wore and returned to work.  There had been some trouble with the radio which he had repaired at 0500 that morning, but as it neared 2200 there was still a backlog of messages that needed to be sent.  Despite the fact that he had been working steadily since officially coming on duty at 2000, his “in” basket remained half full.  He realized that for the passengers, wireless telegraphy was still an amazing toy.  It seemed that all those who could afford it - which was just about everyone aboard save for those in steerage - wanted to send a message to family or friends from the middle of the ocean on the great ship’s maiden voyage. 

The blond head of the junior operator, Charles Tucker, popped into the radio room.  He wasn’t scheduled to go on duty until 0200, but knew that Reed had put in more than his standard 14-hour day.  “I took the latest ice warning up to the bridge for you, Malcolm.  Cap’n doesn’t seem to have slowed us down any, though.”

“I’m sure the captain knows what he’s about.  He **is** the senior captain of the line,” Reed replied with a touch of frost in his voice.  Reed had to admit that Tucker was a skilled operator, hard working and reliable with an outgoing, friendly personality, but the American could be a shade too informal for his taste at times.

Tucker raised his hands in mock surrender.  When he spoke again, his strange (to Reed’s ears) Southern accent had thickened somewhat.  “Now you know I didn’t mean any disrespect to the Old Man.  It’s common knowledge that he wants to win the blue ribbon for the fastest crossing, and with this ship, I’ll bet the farm he will, too.  Besides what do we have to fuss about?  Everybody and his brother says this ship is the wonder of the age and that God himself couldn’t sink her.”

“Hmmm,” Reed huffed in reply.  He came from a family of seafaring men who knew better than to tempt Fate by declaring any craft “unsinkable.”  An ancestor had been with Nelson at the Battle of the Nile and had seen the huge French flagship _L’Orient_ destroyed by a massive explosion.  His father was a well-respected captain in the Royal Navy who had been an observer at the Battle of Tsushima where the Imperial Japanese Navy had unexpectedly crushed the Russian Second Pacific Squadron in May 1905.  But for his own frail constitution, he would have followed in his father’s footsteps.  Instead, much to his father’s dismay, the bright, industrious, sober and polite young man had gone to sea as one of the Marconi Corporation’s best radio telegraphers.  His ability had won him the much coveted position of lead operator on the maiden voyage of the White Star Line’s newest and greatest liner.

“Tell you what, Malcolm.  It’s getting right cold.  What do you say I go get you a nice hot cup of tea?   Then I’ll give you a hand with some of this.”   He waved vaguely toward the pile of messages yet to be sent.  Reed could be a bit stiff at times, but he knew his business, conducted himself honorably and was usually pleasant enough.  All in all, Tucker rather liked him and didn’t wish to antagonize him.

\---

“Any luck, Hoshi?” Archer asked.

“No, sir.  I’ve tried boosting the power, but still no response.”

Archer thumbed the comm link on the command chair.  “Archer to Tucker.”

“Go ahead, Cap’n.”

“Trip, do you think you could increase power to the transceiver?  Hoshi’s got it at max but still hasn’t received a reply.  Maybe Malcolm can’t hear us.”

“Be right there.  I’ll see what I can do.”

T’Pol had the sense not to remark that perhaps there was no reply not because Reed’s comm unit was down but because he was no longer alive.  That would be most unfortunate.  In certain respects, Reed was the most Vulcan-like of the crew and was certainly competent in his job.  While she would tell anyone who asked that Vulcans didn’t “miss” people, she knew she would notice his absence.

\---

Reed went back to work on the stack of messages.   The hot tea had energized him.  He had finally gotten a strong signal from Cape Race in Newfoundland and had made great headway in clearing his “in” basket.   There had only been one problem.  A nearby ship - he knew this because the signal had been so strong that he’d had to pull off his headphones in pain - had tried to contact him.  It had been a long day, and he had had no patience for the chatty operator.  With uncharacteristic bluntness, he had told this person, “Shut up!  I’m busy working.”

\---

"Captain, I’ve contacted Malcolm!  He’s alive!”  Sato’s joy was palpable, but then her face fell.  “I’m not sure, sir, but I think he just told me to shut up.”

“Put it on speaker, Ensign.”  The recorded transmission was faint and scratchy, but at the end of it Archer said, “I’m sure.  Notify Dr. Phlox to get Malcolm’s biobed ready for him.  I’m no expert, but I’d say our armory officer probably has at least a concussion.”  He turned to the helm.  “How long, Travis?”

“A good 4 hours, sir.  Maybe a bit less.  Commander Tucker said he was going to do some more ‘tweaking'.”

Speak of the Devil.  Tucker’s voice came over the comm link.  “Cap’n, we’re going to have to back down on the power to the transceiver.  It’s close to being fried.  I’m afraid if it goes, it'll take Hoshi’s console with it.  We should be able to contact Malcolm again when we get closer.”

\---

Reed had continued to work.  The intrusive operator hadn’t returned.  The basket was almost empty.  He’d barely noticed the slight bump and certainly had not heard the noise that sounded like tearing cloth.  He was surprised when the Captain informed him that they’d struck an iceberg and even more surprised when a few minutes later he was ordered to send a call for assistance.

Reed’s  long, slender fingers immediately began to tap out on the key, “CQD, CQD, CQD” followed by the code letters for his ship and it’s position.   He tried to share in the optimism of his junior operator.  The ship wouldn’t sink.  It was merely a precaution to have ships standing by that could take off the passengers and provide additional engineering skill to repair the damage.  It would be highly embarrassing, but they might require a tow.  _Come quick, danger._

\---

“Captain, I’ve lost the emergency beacon!”  There was just a hint of panic in Sato’s voice.  “No, wait!  There’s something there.  A pattern of some sort.  It sounds vaguely familiar, but I can’t quite place it.”  She put it on speaker. 

“Sounds almost like Morse code,” Tucker offered.

“It is, more or less,” Archer said.  “It’s the Continental version.  They weren’t exactly alike.”

“So what’s he saying, Captain?” Mayweather asked.

“He’s repeating ‘CQD',” Archer answered.

“Wasn’t that the old international distress signal?  The one before SOS?”  Sato was thinking out loud.  “It hasn’t been used since - I don’t  know - the 1920s, I think.  Why would Malcolm use it now?”

“Perhaps he wished to assure us that he is alive.  I believe he is aware that one of your merit badges was for amateur radio, Captain.  I also believe that the Lieutenant thought it likely that Ensign Sato would recognize that there was a pattern to his transmission.  However, should she not recognize the code or its significance, he knew that you would,” T’Pol replied.   

“How much longer, Travis?”

“Another 2 hours, sir, more or less,” Mayweather answered.

“Let’s try to make it less, shall we?”  Archer wasn’t smiling. 

\---

Time passed.  Reed could no longer ignore the fact that the ship was down by the bow and heavily listing to starboard.  In a great cacophony of sound that even he could hear through the headphones, the engineers had vented the steam from the boilers to prevent an explosion.  In any case, forward motion would only make things worse.  Word had been passed to lower the lifeboats.  Nonetheless, he and Tucker remained at their posts.  He’d had no luck with CQD.  _Come quick, disaster._   Now Tucker joked that perhaps this was his last chance to try the new international distress signal.  The rhythm of his fingers, of the key, of the dancing blue spark changed.   “SOS, SOS, SOS.”  Reed wished he could fire off some rockets.  Perhaps then, if help couldn’t hear him, it could at least see him.

 ---

“Captain, the transmission has gone back to ‘SOS’.”   No one on the bridge of the _Enterprise_ thought that this was a good thing.

“Travis, step on it, will you?”  Archer shot Tucker a look but didn’t reprimand him.  How could he?  He’d been thinking the same thing.   Tucker just gave voice to it first.

\---

Reed stopped transmitting for a few moments to flex his fingers.  Try as he might, he couldn’t prevent himself from thinking what it must be like below.  It didn’t require a window to know that the list, and therefore the tilt of the deck, had increased alarmingly.  Any lifeboats still available to port (left) surely could not be swung out far enough to be launched now.  Any lifeboats remaining to starboard would be swung out so far that they couldn’t be boarded without making a fearful leap.  To fall between . . .  He scrunched his eyes closed for a moment.  It didn't help.  His mind’s eye imagined crewmates trapped below.  The icy water rapidly overtaking them.  The protective doors closing and trapping them.  It had all happened so fast!  What good was he?   He couldn’t save them.  Nonetheless, he mechanically began transmitting again.  _Come quick, damn it!_  

The next thing he knew, the Captain had entered the radio room.  He was an older gentleman with gray hair, a beard and mustache who seemed incredibly weary and resigned.   He addressed the two operators.  “Men, you have done your full duty.  You can do no more.  Abandon your cabin.  Now it’s every man for himself.” 

The power was very low.  The dancing blue spark was fading.  Reed looked up for a moment but continued to transmit.  The Captain tried again.  “You look out for yourselves.  I release you.”  Strangely, the last memory Reed had of the Captain was of a tall, middle-aged man, clean-shaven with brown hair and green eyes.  The dancing blue spark was dying, but Reed continued to work.  He’d gone back to the old signal.  “CQD, CQD, CQ . . .” The dancing blue spark flickered once more and was gone.    

Without power, Reed could do no more, so he and Tucker finally made to leave their station.  Tucker had been gathering up a few of their possessions from the cabin they shared next to the radio room.  “Hey, you!  What do you think you’re doing?”  Tucker yelled in surprise.  A stoker, the name Hayes came to mind, was just about to steal Reed’s lifebelt.  Tucker decked him with a single blow and left him where he’d fallen.

Tucker went forward and began helping other members of the crew with a collapsible boat.  It couldn’t be launched, but perhaps it would float off when the sea had risen high enough.  Reed went aft looking for a place from which to jump.  Not too high; the fall could kill.  His lips formed a small, mirthless smile.  There must be a lifeboat nearby to take him in or a large enough piece of debris on which to float.  The point was to get away from the ship before its suction pulled one down with it.  He found his spot and launched himself into eternity.  The last thing he heard was music. 

_Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down_

_Darkness be over me, my rest a stone._

_Yet in my dreams I’ll be,_

_Nearer, my God, to thee._

\---

"I’ve lost the emergency beacon again!”  There was definite fear in Sato’s voice.  “There’s no signal of any sort.  I’ve checked all bands, all frequencies.  There’s nothing . . . simply nothing.”

“Easy, Hoshi, we’re there.  We’ll find him,” Mayweather said quietly before making his formal report.  “Captain, we’ve arrived at MGY1912.  We should be directly over Lieutenant Reed’s last known position.”

“Good work, Travis.  Let’s pull over and put it in park.”  Archer turned toward the science station.  “What do you have, T’Pol?”

“I am reading the Lieutenant’s biosign, but it is very faint.  I should have a visual for you . . . now.”

The shuttlepod appeared on screen.  The upper hull of the craft was awash.  There was no sign of Reed.  “Water temperature is 0 degrees centigrade.  Estimated survival time at that temperature is less than 15 minutes.”  T’Pol’s voice was dispassionate.

“Damn it, T’Pol, that’s Malcolm you’re talking about, not some high school science experiment!”

“Trip,” Archer’s voice carried a note of warning.

“Sorry,” Tucker said, although he certainly didn’t sound it.  “I’m going to go check on the transporter.”  He stomped off into the turbolift.

\---

Incredibly cold water cascaded down over Lieutenant Malcolm Reed from the hatch on the top of the shuttlepod, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.  The shock of it made him gasp and he took in a mouthful of water.  His heart was pounding painfully in his chest.  There was no way out!  The first rule of survival training was not to panic.  A _day late and a credit short for that, old boy._   Water in large quantities gave him panic attacks - always had - much to his father’s disgust.  Stay still and lose less body heat.  That wasn’t going to happen either as he sought the ever dwindling air pocket.  The water rose higher and higher.  He was beginning to feel numb and disoriented; the latter not being helped when even the emergency power failed.  His lungs burned.  _Come quick, drowning._   He thought he heard music.  Just before he blacked out, he saw shimmering lights.  _Come quick, dying._

_There let the way appear, steps onto heav’n_

_All that Thou sendest me; in mercy given_

_Angels to beckon me_

_Nearer, my God, to thee._

_\---_

_All right then, Charlie boy, you’ve got to do this fast, but you’ve got to do it right.  Malcolm is counting on you.  Don’t you let him down!_   Tucker’s hands moved rapidly yet surely over the transporter controls.   “Locked on to biosign.  Energizing,” he said to no one in particular.  _Come quick, dying._   Dr. Phlox and Liz Cutler were standing by.  Phlox seemed more worried than normal but still managed to direct an encouraging smile toward Tucker.  

The shimmering lights brought back with them the sodden body of Malcolm Reed and dumped it unceremoniously in a pool of water on the pad.  “We’ve got him, Cap’n!”  Tucker’s joy turned to terror in an instant as he got a better look at Reed.  He was cyanotic.  His pupils were dilated such that almost none of the blue-gray irides were visible.  It was as if two small, lifeless, soulless, black holes had replaced his eyes.  He didn’t appear to be breathing.  “Doc?” Tucker’s voice quavered.  Phlox and Liz were already hard at work.

\--- 

Reed drifted to consciousness - nerveless, boneless - on a tide of delicious warmth and he was not afraid.  He lay quietly with his eyes still closed.  He savored being dry, warm, safe and unafraid.  He didn’t know if he was dead or alive and found that he didn’t really care.  All that mattered was being dry, warm, safe and unafraid.  Then he heard soft voices murmuring in the background and knew that he wasn’t dead.  He was home.

“Evening, Cap’n,” Tucker said as he rose from the chair beside Reed’s biobed, stretched and stifled a yawn.  “Doc says Malcolm’s got a concussion, hypothermia and a touch of aspiration pneumonia, plus he was shivering so much that he’d probably be aching all over if he were awake, but he’ll be fine.  He just needs to rest and stay warm.  I think the Doc is giving him a little something to help with that.”  He gestured toward the IV line. 

“You don’t mind if I wait for him to come around, do you?  Hess has things under control and knows where to find me if anything comes up.  Doc also said it wouldn’t hurt if Malcolm woke up to a friendly face.  He’s had one tough row to hoe today.”

_More than you know_.  “Sounds like a good idea, Trip.  You probably have the best rapport with him of anyone on board.  I know that ‘captain’ and ‘friend’ aren’t two words Malcolm uses in the same sentence.  _Or same page._   I’ll be by to see him when he’s feeling better.  Please tell him from me that it’s good to have him home.  _Enterprise_ wouldn’t be the same without him.”  Impatient barking was heard from the other side of the privacy curtain.  “Ah, yes, I believe I hear my master’s voice,” Archer chuckled.  “I’d best get a move on.  You’ll let me know when he wakes up?”

“Sure thing, Cap’n.”  Tucker settled himself back in his chair after Archer left.  When he looked over again at Reed, his gaze was returned by two sleepy blue-gray eyes.  “Malcolm, you awake?”

“No, I’m not,” a voice just as sleepy as the eyes responded.

Tucker edged his chair closer to the biobed.  “How are you feeling?”

“Dry . . . warm . . . safe . . . home -- it’s nice,” came the slightly slurred reply.

“Do you remember what happened to you down there?  Damn, Malcolm, you scared the living daylights out of us!”

“I assure you, Commander, it was no walk in the park for me either.”  Reed’s voice was stronger now, with more of an edge to it, but his mind was still not as sharp as it normally was or he would never have taken Tucker’s question as a senior officer’s request for a formal report.

“I was making a routine surveying pass when the engine cut out without warning.  I followed the emergency protocols but was unable to restart it.  I attempted to make a soft landing but must have bollixed it up at the end and lost control.”  Reed looked away for a moment.  There had been shame in his voice.  He returned his gaze to Tucker.  “Where you able to recover it?  Do you know why the engine failed?”  

“I’m afraid not.  It’s about 2 miles down, and we aren’t exactly equipped for deep water marine salvage.”

“Pity, that.  I was hoping to ask the Captain’s permission to use it for target practice.  That’s twice now that shuttlepod has almost killed me.  Just because you thought I was paranoid about it, doesn’t mean it wasn’t out to get me!”

“Well, I’d say you don’t have to worry about it anymore, unless it comes back to haunt you,” Tucker said with a grin. 

“Do you remember anything else?  Tucker’s voice was gentle.

Reed was quiet for a time as he struggled to make sense of the strange and sometimes frightening bits and pieces he could recall.  As last, speaking slowly, he picked up his narrative.  “I must have hit my head.  The next thing I remember - I thought I was the communications officer on the _Titanic._ ”

“That explains why you reprogrammed the emergency beacon to transmit the old distress signal.  Not that that was a bad thing.  At least we knew you were still with us, and all we had to do was come find you.”

“You were there, too, Trip, and the Captain.  I followed all the proper procedures, all the protocols, but no one came to help.  I couldn’t save us.  It was so cold, so very cold.  I think we all died.”  Reed’s eyes were fixed on something far away.  His voice lacked all inflection.

“When I was growing up, my hero, even more than my father, was my great uncle.  He was terrified of drowning but enlisted in the Royal Navy anyway.  He wasn’t content with a posting to the surface fleet.  He applied for submariners’ school, was accepted and passed with flying colors.  He was assigned to the _H.M.S. Clement_ as chief engineer.  It was patrolling in the Arctic when it hit a long-forgotten mine.  Perhaps it was placed by the Russians in the Cold War days or by the Germans to deter the Allied supply runs to Murmansk during World War II.  It doesn’t really matter.  The ship was rapidly taking on water and was too heavily damaged to surface through the ice.  My great uncle allowed himself to be trapped in the reactor room when the damage control doors closed.  He maintained power long enough so the rest of the crew could make it to the escape pods and safety.”

“People wonder why I didn’t go into the ‘family business’ and join the Royal Navy.  Some say it was to spite my father.  The more charitable say that I wanted to get out of his shadow and make my own way, that anything meaningful that I accomplished in the navy would be ascribed to my being the Admiral’s son, not to my having any ability or working my arse off.  The truth is, I was - **am** \- terrified of drowning just as my great uncle was.” 

Tucker listened with growing alarm as he decided that it was his fault that Reed had had the hallucination about being on the _Titanic_.  For months he’d tried to get Reed to relax a bit and join the rest of the crew more often at Movie Night.  He knew that Reed enjoyed action/adventure films and war movies and appreciated good special effects, accuracy and a plot worth thinking about.  He’d shown _The Hunt for Red October_ with Sean Connery as a defecting Soviet skipper who brings along his prototype submarine.  He’d shown Wolfgang Petersen’s acclaimed film _The Boat_ about the exploits of a German U-boat in World War II _._ He’d even shown _Lord Jim_ with Peter O’Toole because he knew Reed liked the works of Joseph Conrad.  Reed always begged off.  He always had other plans for the evening which usually turned out to be working off-shift in the armory. 

Last week, Tucker had had enough.  He decided to screen James Cameron’s film _Titanic_ which, although old, was still considered the best of the myriad of films made about the disaster.  He’d more or less twisted Reed’s arm to assure his attendance by inviting him in the presence of the Captain and T’Pol.  Reed couldn’t refuse without seeming churlish.

“Malcolm, I’m real sorry.  I swear I had no idea you were afraid of drowning.  I know I tease you about a lot of stuff - like what you like to eat, your accent, about being a smart-ass Brit - but I don’t mean anything by it.  You’ve got to believe me that I would never knowingly tease you about something serious like what you’re most scared of.  Why didn’t you say something?”  Trip’s whole being radiated distress.

Reed closed his eyes and turned his face away.  “It’s embarrassing,” he whispered.

“Hell, Malcolm, everybody’s afraid of something.  Even Shran - and you know how gung-ho he is - crosses the street if he sees those electric worm things coming.”

“What are you afraid of, Commander?”  The question was asked quietly with no malice attached.  Tucker stared at the floor, his silence lasting just a beat too long.  “It’s not so easy to ‘say something’ is it?”  Reed’s voice was still quiet.

Tucker’s head snapped up.  “Snakes.  I hate snakes!  Nasty, sidewindin ’, slitherin’ things.  They hide in the toe of your boot, creep into your bedroll at night and crawl up your leg.  They stare at you with beady eyes, make that disgusting hissing noise and are always flicking that forked tongue.  I hate snakes!”

When he looked at Reed, he was surprised, and more than a bit disheartened, to see a half-smile on his lips, but before he could protest, Reed said, “You and Indiana Jones.”  Then, he did a quite credible impersonation of Harrison Ford (considering his medicated condition, or perhaps because of it):  “Snakes!  Why did it have to be snakes?”  His accent reverted to normal.  “I’ve always wondered why you could reliably be found in the gents during that scene in _Raiders of the Lost Ark_.Now I know.”  His smile broadened, but again there was no malice in it.

Tucker folded his arms across his chest in a defensive posture more common to Reed.  “Yeah, well, now you know!”  Try as he might, he couldn’t resist smiling, too.

Tucker sat down again.  “Say, Malcolm, that old distress signal you used - do you know what CQD means?”

Reed did know, but the deliciously warm tide on which he floated was beginning to ebb and was pulling him toward a deep pool of dreamless sleep.  It was too much trouble to try to remember.  “Do tell,” he murmured.

“Some people think it means ‘come quick, danger’, ‘disaster’ or even ‘damn it’, but that’s not it at all.” 

“I have more than a passing acquaintance with those sentiments."  _And a few more,_  Reed offered.  But now he was dry, warm, safe and unafraid.   He was home, trusted and even valued.  He stretched luxuriantly like a great cat.

“CQ is a general call, kind of a shorthand for ‘anybody out there gather ‘round and listen up’.”

“How do you come to know this?”

“Just  because I don’t have a merit badge in amateur radio like you and the Cap’n doesn’t mean I didn’t have a ham radio set when I was growing up.  I got some real interesting contact cards if you’d care to come by and see them as soon as Phlox lets you out.”

“You show me yours.  I’ll show you mine.”  Reed’s voice was a bit fuzzy again.

“Look, just say ‘CQ’ real slow and kind of drawn out.  You’ll get it, even with your accent.”

Reed opened his eyes just enough to shoot Tucker a look, but then closed them again and did as he was told.  “Sea-queue, see-Kew, seek-you,” he murmured.  His eyes opened again.  “Seek you!  But what does the D mean?”

Tucker knew it had merely been added to create a distress call, something not used on land.  He also knew Reed would give him 15 kinds of hell from here to next week for such a lame, anticlimactic answer.  When he finally made to tell him, he found he need not have worried.  Reed was sound asleep. 

Tucker took another blanket out of the warmer and carefully tucked it around Reed.  He smoothed back the unruly curl of dark hair from the pale forehead.  “Why that’s easy, Malcolm.  CQD means ‘seek you, darling.'  Cap’n’s right.  We can’t go losing our armory officer.  _Enterprise_ just wouldn’t be the same without you.”

\---

Back in his cabin, Tucker scrolled through a long list of films.  _Here's just the thing!  Award winning, beautifully filmed, great soundtrack.  It should be popular with the crew.  Even T'Pol might like it because the desert should remind her of home.  Can't be too much water in the middle of a desert, and it's all about an eccentric, enigmatic, English lieutenant in the Middle East during World War I._   He called up the announcement for Movie Night and deleted the listed film - another Wolfgang Petersen opus called _The Perfect Storm_ and inserted the new title.

Now playing at the Bijou: _Lawrence of Arabia_.  Doors open at 1900.

_See you there, Malcolm.  I'm saving you a seat down front._


End file.
